The KITON PLANETARIUM & OBSERVATORY

is the official Cyprus National Point of Contact for the

(International Meteor Organization (IMO) for Fireballs.

Please read below what Fireballs are and send us an

e-mail to [email protected] 

with videos or pictures of fireballs you observed

and a bried description of your experience for further scientific investigation and research.

Fireballs are meteors that appear brighter than normal.

A great majority of the material orbiting in outer space are tiny

sub-millimeter sized bits of stone, ice, or metal, or a combination of these materials.

These are known as micrometeoroids or simply space dust.

These tiny fragments cannot produce enough light to be seen

when encountering the atmosphere and yet they contribute many tons

of material to the Earth’s weight each year.

As the size of these objects approach a millimeter, they begin to produce enough light

to be seen upon entry to the upper atmosphere as ordinary meteors.

Due to the velocity at which they strike the Earth’s atmosphere,

fragments larger than 1 millimeter have the capability to produce a bright flash

as they streak through the heavens above.

These bright meteors are what we call fireballs and they often strike fear

and awe for those who witness them.